Beat SRIV. Fantastic game. Only pet peeve right now is you unlock the option to control the time of day at the end, which is all fine and dandy, but you have to go to a specific location to do it, also it's not "morning", "noon", "night", etc, it's a bunch of really fucking vague names, some of which have weird color filters with them. I just want midday. Jesus.

EDIT: Aside from collectibles, I've mopped up all the side activity stuff, and now it's kinda boring. Might start a new game. Also my character looks BA, finally figured out a set of clothes that look good, since SRIV has less clothing options than 3. In 3 I wore the future soldier outfit, and you can still get it in SRIV, but you can't customize the colors (the default colors look kinda ugly), its bogus. I am digging the athletic look though.

FUCKING COLLECTIBLES. I spent far too long combing the map for the few clusters I'd missed. I'm talking grabbing a jet and making thorough sweeps to find them. Then it was pointed out to me that I could have just gone into the map and set the filter to "collectibles" since I'd gotten the finder from Matt pretty early. Derp. I kinda dig the tough chick look your LadyBoss has. Mine tends to swing between punk chick to the Luchador soldier suit, since it looks pretty awesome on women.

So, erm, I've clearly been playing Saints Row 4. I've also beaten Silent Hill: Homecoming and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Homecoming wasn't dreadful...it just wasn't scary, and it was way too easy. I was shocked at how quickly the bosses went down. Brothers, on the other hand, was a beautiful game. I will say that as far as gameplay goes, it's interesting, but nothing to really rave about. What really shines is the story. I can't understand a damn thing anyone says because it's in some language that clearly isn't English, but the game does a fine job of showing instead of telling. You'll smile, you'll stand in awe of your surroundings, you'll panic...hell, you might even cry. I did. But I'm kind of prone to bitchtears anyway.

They just speak a gibberish language in Brothers, kinda like the Simblish language in the Sims games.

And yeah I've kinda rolled with the tough chick look in most of my games that allow me to create characters. I have a thing for short hair and tomboys, so it's what I do. Since I can't customize the clothing I used last game I rolled with a more athletic look, kinda like female MMA fighters. This is my character from the last game, almost the exact same as my SRIV character (I tweaked her a bit in SRIV), but different clothes, which you can't change the colors of in IV (by default its an ugly brown and green), so like I said, went with the athletic look.

Ah I only ever played one of the Brothers in Arms games, and it was okay-ish.

And $5 isn't bad, I'd buy it at that price just out of a morbid curiosity, but my compy can't run it. I'm sure it'll be in the bargain bin for consoles soon enough.

I'd be kind of afraid of getting it for a console. From the screenshots I've seen the console version still looks pretty rough. I spent most of yesterday playing multi-player for it online (both campaign co-op and vs modes to grind for challenge unlocks) and the vs mode is surprisingly good. Aliens are fragile as hell but the rush you get from culling Marines from the group is AWESOME. Even better is sneaking in through through the ceiling and taking out the marines that are watching the doors. But that being said, Aliens against a smart group of Marines who know how to cover each other really have their work cut out for them.

I'd be kind of afraid of getting it for a console. From the screenshots I've seen the console version still looks pretty rough. I spent most of yesterday playing multi-player for it online (both campaign co-op and vs modes to grind for challenge unlocks) and the vs mode is surprisingly good. Aliens are fragile as hell but the rush you get from culling Marines from the group is AWESOME. Even better is sneaking in through through the ceiling and taking out the marines that are watching the doors. But that being said, Aliens against a smart group of Marines who know how to cover each other really have their work cut out for them.

The PC version itself doesn't really look too impressive. I mean, compare it to the original trailer, and even then that was kinda good-but-not-bad tier.

Got a wad for doom called "Psychic". As is implied by title, you have psychic abilities in it, killing enemies drops coins, which can be used to purchase new powers, weapons, power ups, and upgrades for weapons and powers. There's only 5 weapons (different from standard doom weapons), they all do less damage, but they have infinite ammo, and they can all be upgraded, though upgrades vary between weapons, upgrading one might increase power, while upgrading the other might increase area of effect. As for powers, there's several fun ones to play with, ignite your enemies, freeze them, shoot a ball of plasma, or throw a wave of rock spikes from the ground. Tons of killing variety.

They added direct x10 support, which isn't quite as pretty as 11 but is miles beyind 9, also higher definition textures, for instance I can read name labels on lockers and body armor that appear to be blobs of pixels in ps3 screenshots. Does it look like the trailer? Does it look as good as Crysis 3? (or even 2) no. Does it still look like a last gen title? No. Though it took nearly 4 gigs of patching to get the PC version looking/playing to an acceptable level. (And I've read through the various patch notes, the stuff that was fixed NEVER should have made it into a released game.) My comment was more about not knowing the details of the support the console versions may or may not have received, because is they are still on par with release day ACM they're an unplayable mess.

Digging the multiplayer though, spent most of last night playing escape, I'm still not using the aliens to their full potential (the surface transitions still mess me up) but I'm doing better with them. My specialty is becoming hit and run incapping and letting my team mop up behind me, we slaughtered a whole squad in less than a minute and twenty seconds last night.

Beat XCOM:Enemy Unknown, finally. Longbow, my lead sniper, was the psychic soldier who had high enough will to use the machine to find the Ethereal's mother-ship. Spoiler Alpha's details because I doubt everyone wants to read about them, and there is a lot there. I love these bastards, so I just had to get some of this off of my chest somewhere and this is the place.

(click to show/hide)

I'll refer to them by their nicknames, which I never altered. Humorously enough they all fit reasonably well..

Longbow died in accordance with the ending but she was one of the two non-original soldiers who made it into Alpha. She was the first of the new batch of recruits and from the moment it was researched she used grapple to take the highest point and cover everyone from there. She was a fully offensive psychic, the first test subject for everything mind-related. She'd panic or mind control things she couldn't shoot, giving her teammates the time they needed to recover.

Zeus , my other sniper, always came through in a pinch. 13% chance of connecting? He would critical on that. I testing him a little later and Zeus wasn't psychic, and I usually had him run lead for Beta team. He was on both Alpha and Beta because of my limited number of snipers. I pulled him for Alpha team when Longbow was injured, or the mission was "Very Difficult" in a high panic zone. I put him on the final mission because I wanted everyone from the start to finish. Zeus has always struck like lighting, never striking the same place twice. Usually because the first painted alien brains on the wall.

The "bash-brothers" Mack (Heavy) and Rascal (Assault w/plasma rifle) were badasses through and through. During my first terror mission these two were cut off by some charging floaters who forced the rest of the team to retreat; They were poisoned by Thinmen and cleaned the majority of the map by themselves in 3 turns despite me basically running them through the gauntlet with the full intent of letting them die to keep the rest of the team alive. Throughout the entire game both were rarely wounded despite being shot often, Mack more seriously than Rascal when they were. Proved by their differences in will, 79 versus 84 respectively. After Longbow was proven psychic I immediately put these two in with Fastlane, and they were both psychic; It cemented their bash-brother tenancies. They both took the option to panic enemies, but Rascal took the defensive Will boosting AoE power while Mack took mind control.

Fastlane was the team medic, and the only non-psychic on every single one of Alpha's missions. Out of all the characters I used she was the only one I didn't alter right away, I eventually changed her hair style to a baseballcap & headset when she started wearing her armor. Out of all of my characters she probably had the best accuracy. After my first alien capture I gave her the light plasma rifle and she habitually mowed down anything between her and an injured teammate.

Sheriff was my other assault and used a shotgun. He spawned with sunglasses, a pornstache and a strong sense of Justice. Everytime someone was injured, or taking fire, he'd connect. 5% or 95% chance to hit, he'd fucking connect. I'd use him to sprint across maps and give cover to anyone who needed it. He was one the vanguards for Fastlane.

Honorable mention: Tombstone was another assault, and only off-mission to accommodate Zeus. I realized on his 3rd mission that because he spawned with a helmet, his armor was white, and the heavy armor I equipped him with, that he looks like a Storm Trooper. His accuracy with shotgun is atrocious and he never got close enough to hit anything. I equipped him with a light rifle and S.C.O.P.E. so he can hit things, and even then he had trouble until he was a Major. He was psychic and a completely defensive build. I usually had him and Sheriff protect or clear rooms for Fastlane.

Yes, Alpha usually ran with a sniper, heavy, medic and 3 assault.

Here's how the final mission went:

I had Longbow stay on the middle/high track for the whole mission. With squad sight and double tap she was able to cover everyone's ass just enough to ensure their survival. Zeus worked the right side of the ship for half the map before grappling up the middle section and helping Longbow cover everyone. He used "In the zone" to kill 3 out of the 4 Chrysastabbities when they spawned; he also killed the two heavy Muttons when my the bastards spawned in flanking position and my team was exposed.

The bash-brothers ran the whole left side of the mother-ship on their own. They breached rooms first and just owned everything, even when the zombiebugs and muttons spawned in flanking position they reacted appropriately and killed them before the creatures injured them. They breached the final room by themselves and killed both Berserker/Heavy Muttons right away, allowing for Longbow to drop the lead Ethereal with double tap.

Sheriff, Zeus and Fastlane took the right side. Hallway through Zeus went to the middle to join Longbow, and in the next section Sheriff was shot to shit. He got crit'ed and then shot twice, so despite being healed for 10/12 points he lost he did need to be revived. Fastlane healed him again after reviving him. They played it safe for the rest of the mission.

Needless to say it was really pleasant to see all of my original Alpha team survive, with ease for the most part.

Just beat Silent Hill: Downpour. I actually REALLY liked it. The monsters were a little lacking, but ultimately I felt like it was a solid addition to the series. Now I just gotta pick something to start next...LA Noire, Metal Gear Solid 3, or Mass Effect 3.